looked pleased. She retired into the kitchen again, as Sir Stafford Nye put his hand on his bedroom door handle preparatory to going into the bedroom.
‘All right to give your clothes to the gentleman what called for them, I suppose, sir? You hadn’t said or left word or anything like that.’
‘What clothes?’ said Sir Stafford Nye, pausing.
‘Two suits, it was, the gentleman said as called for them. Twiss and Bonywork it was, think that’s the same name as called before. We’d had a bit of a dispute with the White Swan laundry if I remember rightly.’
‘Two suits?’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Which suits?’
‘Well, there was the one you travelled home in, sir. I made out that would be one of them. I wasn’t quite so sure about the other, but there was the blue pinstripe that you didn’t leave no orders about when you went away. It could do with cleaning, and there was a repair wanted doing to the right-hand cuff, but I didn’t like to take it on myself while you were away. I never likes to do that,’ said Mrs Worrit with an air of palpable virtue.
‘So the chap, whoever he was, took those suits away?’
‘I hope I didn’t do wrong, sir.’ Mrs Worrit became worried.
‘I don’t mind the blue pinstripe. I daresay it’s all for the best. The suit I came home in, well—’
‘It’s a bit thin, that suit, sir, for this time of year, you know, sir. All right for those parts as you’ve been in where it’s hot. And it could do with a clean. He said as you’d rung up about them. That’s what the gentleman said as called for them.’
‘Did he go into my room and pick them out himself?’
‘Yes, sir. I thought that was best.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘Yes, very interesting.’
He went into his bedroom and looked round it. It was neat and tidy. The bed was made, the hand of Mrs Worrit was apparent, his electic razor was on charge, the things on the dressing-table were neatly arranged.
He went to the wardrobe and looked inside. He looked in the drawers of the tallboy that stood against the wall near the window. It was all quite tidy. It was tidier indeed than it should have been. He had done a little unpacking last night and what little he had done had been of a cursory nature. He had thrown underclothing and various odds and ends in the appropriate drawer but he had not arranged them neatly. He would have done that himself either today or tomorrow. He would not have expected Mrs Worrit to do it for him. He expected her merely to keep things as she found them. Then, when he came back from abroad, there would be a time for rearrangements and readjustments because of climate and other matters. So someone had looked round here, someone had taken out drawers, looked through them quickly, hurriedly, had replaced things, partly because of his hurry, more tidily and neatly than he should have done. A quick careful job and he had gone away with two suits and a plausible explanation. One suit obviously worn by Sir Stafford when travelling and a suit of thin material which might have been one taken abroad and brought home. So why?
‘Because,’ said Sir Stafford thoughtfully, to himself, ‘because somebody was looking for something. But what? And who? And also perhaps why?’ Yes, it was interesting.
He sat down in a chair and thought about it. Presently his eyes strayed to the table by the bed on which sat, rather pertly, a small furry panda. It started a train of thought. He went to the telephone and rang a number.
‘That you, Aunt Matilda?’ he said. ‘Stafford here.’
‘Ah, my dear boy, so you’re back. I’m so glad. I read in the paper they’d got cholera in Malaya yesterday, at least I think it was Malaya. I always get so mixed up with those places. I hope you’re coming to see me soon? Don’t pretend you’re busy. You can’t be busy all the time. One really only accepts that sort of thing from tycoons, people in industry, you know, in the middle of mergers and takeovers. I never know what it all really means. It used to mean doing your work properly but now it means things all tied up with atom bombs and factories in concrete,’ said Aunt Matilda, rather wildly. ‘And those terrible computers that get all one’s figures wrong, to say nothing of making them the wrong shape. Really, they have made life so difficult for us nowadays. You wouldn’t believe the things they’ve done to my bank account. And to my postal address too. Well, I suppose I’ve lived too long.’
‘Don’t you believe it! All right if I come down next week?’
‘Come down tomorrow if you like. I’ve got the vicar coming to dinner, but I can easily put him off.’
‘Oh, look here, no need to do that.’
‘Yes there is, every need. He’s a most irritating man and he wants a new organ too. This one does quite well as it is. I mean the trouble is with the organist, really, not the organ. An absolutely abominable musician. The vicar’s sorry for him because he lost his mother whom he was very fond of. But really, being fond of your mother doesn’t make you play the organ any better, does it? I mean, one has to look at things as they are.’
‘Quite right. It will have to be next week—I’ve got a few things to see to. How’s Sybil?’
‘Dear child! Very naughty but such fun.’
‘I brought her home a woolly panda,’ said Sir Stafford Nye.
‘Well, that was very nice of you, dear.’
‘I hope she’ll like it,’ said Sir Stafford, catching the panda’s eye and feeling slightly nervous.
‘Well, at any rate, she’s got very good manners,’ said Aunt Matilda, which seemed a somewhat doubtful answer, the meaning of which Sir Stafford did not quite appreciate.
Aunt Matilda suggested likely trains for next week with the warning that they very often did not run, or changed their plans, and also commanded that he should bring her down a Camembert cheese and half a Stilton.
‘Impossible to get anything down here now. Our own grocer—such a nice man, so thoughtful and such good taste in what we all liked—turned suddenly into a supermarket, six times the size, all rebuilt, baskets and wire trays to carry round and try to fill up with things you don’t want and mothers always losing their babies, and crying and having hysterics. Most exhausting. Well, I’ll be expecting you, dear boy.’ She rang off.
The telephone rang again at once.
‘Hullo? Stafford? Eric Pugh here. Heard you were back from Malaya—what about dining tonight?’
‘Like to very much.’
‘Good—Limpits Club—eight-fifteen?’
Mrs Worrit panted into the room as Sir Stafford replaced the receiver.
‘A gentleman downstairs wanting to see you, sir,’ she said. ‘At least I mean, I suppose he’s that. Anyway he said he was sure you wouldn’t mind.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Horsham, sir, like the place on the way to Brighton.’
‘Horsham.’ Sir Stafford Nye was a little surprised.
He
